One useless approach to solving problems is to deny them. This “un-solution” is perplexing because it is as nonsensical as it is an easy sell. Telling someone that they don’t have the problem that afflicts them is a surprisingly convincing argument for them to stop carping.

Before we decide that we’re too clever to be vulnerable to such evident fallacies, let us reflect on the death of social classes. Remember them? At some point in the later part of the 20th century, most of us accepted they were no longer applicable. We were all part of this equal mass. Those at the top of the wealth pyramid had achieved their position through a combination of astuteness and hard work, not privilege or unfair advantages.

That fake death made most people feel good about their prospects. The rich could tell themselves the story that they deserved their status. The poor could believe that their status depended solely on how they chose to live their lives.

Fictions are useful. Stories drive us. We just need to get better are determining which ones are useful for whom and when.

Un-solutions and other useless fictions

Success is so immune to questioning or criticism that it soon replaces its inception: it no longer matters who was successful in doing what; all that we care about is the fact they were successful. Success breeds success. When mediocrity is successful or when success’s output is mediocre, mediocrity will advance undeterred.

Sadly, it is almost inevitable for success to become mediocre in its expression. Mass-appeal must be generic. We’d rather think that incredibly original and unique artists shape the mass, but, more often than not, it is the other way around: the mass shapes the artist.

I’ve always opposed judging art based on its success: pop could be good or bad despite itself. Perhaps this was yet another instance of my naivety, and one should always be guarded against success due to its natural inclination towards mediocrity.

Successful decay

Even if we keep fit, doing a new type of exercise will remind us of the many muscles we doom to idleness. The same logic must apply to our brain: even those who think for a living cannot expect to consider half the approaches available to us or dwell in a significant fraction of the myriad fields of human expertise.

Rather than despair, we can take the opportunity to remain open to foreign ideas, humble about our beliefs and, more than anything else, active in our listening.

Idle muscles

If one causes enough turmoil, those on the receiving end will soon stop considering the cause of their calamity and focus on the disaster itself. Long-term thinking is only possible when the circumstances are favourable enough not to have to worry about one’s survival.

If one makes survival the main goal for those one seeks to exploit, one can rest assured of their safety. We break down into tribes faster than we’d like to admit. It’s natural: law and order are fictions. Once they dissipate, it’s back to the cave and the days when we could only trust those we knew directly. Destroy how we live and why we live, and all people will be able to care about is the fact that they’re still alive. All their efforts will be directed at subsistence. Even if removing the reason for the dystopia was the fastest way to safety, we wouldn’t know because we couldn’t know. When one struggles to survive, there’s little else one can do.

Thus, we can understand what makes absolutist tyrants and ultra-liberals look so similar: they force those below them to struggle to survive so they can do what they set out to do unimpeded.

Struggling to survive (or do anything else)

Marketers need us to want as many things as possible. The more we want, the more they sell. Thus, in this age of mass information and total access, it’s hard to be bored. Those who are easily excited and cultivate a perennial curiosity are especially vulnerable to such siren singing.

When writing a story, we may be tempted to introduce new characters and locations. Admittedly, characters and locations can move the story forward effectively and entertaining the reader. However, if we tip the balance and abuse the trick, an excess of characters and locations will soon render the story illegible. At this point, it pays to zoom out and reconsider the message we seek to convey. Once that is the centre of our concern, we will likely discover it is much more effective to tell the same tale and portray the same facts through existing protagonists and places.

The same logic applies to surviving the constant marketing barrage. It is worth stopping and reflecting for a couple of seconds. It doesn’t take much longer to look around and wonder what we want and whether we must buy the next thing to satisfy our needs.

Commercial and literary needs

Although I am as prone to anger as anyone else, I belong to the group of individuals (I believe we are the majority) who don’t particularly enjoy rage or umbrage.

Being angry feels like indigestion to me. A subdued malaise that overlays consciousness. A surreptitious and unsettling sensation that spreads to every last inch of me.

Anger drives some people. They live in anger, fed and fuelled by it, energised. Their anger spreads, like wildfire, and we burn, like dry underbrush. The sharpest and most cunning among these spreaders of fury know exactly what they’re doing. They are cold-blooded about it. They anger us and it’s anger we breed for them – unaware assistants.

How not to be angry and still confront the angry onslaught escapes me to this day. However, one way or another, we must persevere. The alternative – their ultimate victory – is too dark to fathom.

Martian Thoughts

Un-solutions and other useless fictions

Successful decay

Idle muscles

Struggling to survive (or do anything else)

Commercial and literary needs

Angry about feeling angry